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Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Slow-Roasted Summer Tomatoes

Tomatoes seem to be falling from the skies these days and gardeners, as well as farmers' market junkies, are enjoying luscious piles of red, orange, yellow and green juicy goodness. I can't help myself when I see ripe, just-picked tomatoes at the market, and I always tend to over buy. This recipe is a great way to ensure that not-a-one precious little globe will go to waste.

Okay, so this is less a recipe and more a philosophy, the philosophy being: when you have produce at the height of its season, the best thing you can do to it is simply not much... add a little fat, a little salt and pepper, and let it just revel in all of its harvest glory. In fact, when I went to write the recipe, it was going to call for 3 pints of cherry tomatoes, but then I used half of one of my pints in my lunch salad and you know what? The recipe will still be delicious. So I am going to not even write this like a recipe and instead just tell you this:

Pre-heat your oven to 300F

Rinse your tomatoes

Toss them in good olive oil, kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Put them on a baking sheet and in the oven for an hour, tossing periodically and adding more oil if they look dry

When they come out, they'll be falling apart, slightly caramelized and ridiculously delicious. Cook your favorite shape of pasta (mine is cappellini, the husband's is rigatoni... both work well with this sauce), drain it saving a bit of the cooking liquid, and scrape the entirety of your baking sheet of tomato gold into the pot, adding the pasta-water bit by bit for extra moisture, if needed at all. Garnish the whole thing with freshly chopped basil and shredded parmesan and enjoy on the spot. You could also add some sauteed sweet Italian sausage to the mix if you have a hungry Italian guy to feed, or save some out to spoon onto crostini for a quick bruschetta. Honestly, it is hard to go wrong with Slow-Roasted Tomatoes. If you must, you can even just sit and eat them with a spoon.

oooo, hale.... maybe you could take one of your drop-dead gorgeous food photos and i can replace that sorry one from my dark kitchen last night (what happens when a certain toddler is in a crazy mood and you don't eat till 8pm). let me know how it turns out!

it turned out delish! i used big tomatoes (mostly green zebras), so there was a lot more juice- which i drained off. we had friends over for dinner and they brought the salad, and can you guess what was in their salad? roasted cherry tomatoes! so it was an impromptu theme- lucky us.